


Alchemy and Other Lies

by jmtorres



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, Weddings, ambiguous parentage, female best man, shield mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-07-05
Updated: 2006-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Also known as the fluffy marshmallow arc, in which Roy attempts to angst and the Hughes family refuse to let him. Written out of order, not complete, not sure it will be completed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Roy heard Gracie say, "Orchids? Honey, these are _beautiful_, where did you get them?"

He poked his head around the doorway just in time to see Alicia answer, beaming, "Fletcher showed me how to make them," and hold up a sheet of paper with an array inked on it in sparkling purple marker.

"Thank you," Gracie said to Alicia, but she was grinning at Roy.

Roy glared at Fletcher Tringham. Fletcher had the grace to blush but looked otherwise unperturbed. It was possible Roy had been overusing his glare on the boy if that was all the response it got.

"You're welcome," said Alicia. She smiled shyly at Roy. "Do you like them?" she asked.

Roy took the array from Alicia and said gruffly, "You shouldn't use sparklers for this kind of thing. Non-continuous arrays have unpredictable effects."

"Says the man who embroidered accents in gold thread on those famous gloves of his," Gracie reminded him cheerfully. Roy had always thought you were supposed to embarrass your offspring in front of their potential mates, not your husband.

"Which lasted for about two days," Roy said patiently. "Because it didn't work."

"Sorry, sir," said Fletcher, twisting his hands behind his back in earnest apology.

"I'll use regular pen next time," Alicia promised.

Roy sighed and rubbed his forehead. Next time? "Alchemy's dangerous--" he began.

"No, it's not," Alicia said, frowning at him. "Not this kind. Just making flowers? There's no harm it. You worry too much."

Fletcher said, "I promise we won't try anything risky without running it by you, sir."

"But--" Roy said.

Gracie stopped him with a kiss on the cheek. "Can't be helped," she said. "If she's an alchemist, she's alchemist. Like father, like daughter."

Roy glared. "It's a recessive trait!" he declared, and went off to fireproof the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter originally posted on dreamwidth: <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/849374.html>.


	2. Chapter 2

This is ancient history, as far as Roy is concerned. It happened a long time ago, and so he only remembers bits and pieces of it. He never had a perfect memory--though he might have had, had he trained himself to, had he been like other alchemists, had he learned hundreds of arrays. Had he needed to be able to sketch them in the dirt, scrape them on the barrel of a gun, scrawl them in blood. But Roy was always a one-trick pony, and the only array he needs is stitched onto his gloves. He has no cause to remember everything. Like most people, he has forgotten most days. Ordinary, unremarkable things rest in dusty corners of his mind. The only things Roy remembers are the ones which stung him; the things he remembers in perfect clarity are the ones which hurt the most.

\---

Maes Hughes had brought four photographs with him to the front: three of women, one of a dog. The silver-haired woman, Roy had correctly deduced, was Maes's dear old mother. One of the young women was his sister, Joannie. The dog's name was Fido, and he could catch a stick no matter how far you threw it.

"And her?" Roy asked.

"Oh, Gracie?" Maes said. "She was a childhood sweetheart of mine. I brought her daisies every summer until I was twelve, and now she's seeing some guy named Todd Larsen. She's too good for him, but he popped the question last time he was on leave and now they're _engaged_."

"So what's the picture of another man's woman doing in your wallet?" Roy asked.

"We're still friends," Maes answered, a little bit defensively. "I mean, she took my crush on Frederich Steiner really well."

Roy blinked.

"That was the summer I was thirteen," Maes babbled on. "He was two years older than me. I didn't want to take him daisies because that seemed like kind of a girly way to approach him, but we'd just gotten Fido from George down the lane whose dog had had a litter back in April, so I went and asked him, Frederich I mean, if he wanted to come and play with my new puppy."

Roy managed to recover his voice. "So why isn't Frederich Steiner's picture in your collection?"

"It was doomed," Maes intoned melodramatically, hand on his heart. "He only loved Fido. He didn't love me. Tragic, really. He had a great ass."

Roy said cautiously, "You're very trusting."

Maes gave him a tolerantly amused look across the bunk. "It's not like I go around telling that story to all the troops," he said. "I've only told you."

"Oh," said Roy. "That's good."

Then he jumped Maes and kissed him silly.

"Finally," said Maes. "You're kind of slow, you know that?"

\---

Maes asked him, one day, how he became a State Alchemist. Roy stared at him a moment, wondering if he knew what he was asking, or if he thought this was the kind of idle conversation you could have when you weren't fucking your fuckbuddy. He tried for a bored tone as he said, "Oh, you know. Alchemy just devoured my life. What else could I do?"

"Really?" said Maes. "You don't strike me as the studious type."

The house burned down when Roy was thirteen. It went unnaturally fast, bricks and mortar crumbling as quickly as wooden beams. The volunteer fire brigade couldn't get close enough to do anything but put fire breaks around the property, to keep the flames from spreading to the other houses down the road. Afterwards, they found Roy naked in the ashes, curled around the bones of--

Then-Major Basque Grand, always looking for new recruits, shielded Roy from his town's accusations of arson and murder. He also taught Roy a measure of control. These were the only two favors Roy considered Grand to have done him. He did not consider being permitted (or urged) to take the State Alchemist's Exam two years early a favor. (That did not prevent him, three years after this conversation with Maes, from promising the same "favor" to Edward Elric.)

Rather than answer Maes, Roy said, "How did you end up in Intelligence?"

"I wanted to find the quickest way to end the war," said Maes.

Roy blinked thoughtfully. "How's that coming?"

"Slower than I'd like," Maes said wryly. "But I'm doing what I can."

\---

When Roy first met Maes, he was a lieutenant and a courier. The Ishbalans were smart enough to cut telegraph lines, so for the most part, messages had to be hand-carried between headquarters and the front. Half the time, Maes showed up without a duffle, just some urgent orders, cream parchment folded and tied off. He never stayed long, but sometimes that meant an hour and sometimes it meant a week--the generals played "hurry up and wait" with him as much as they did with the rest of the troops. It all depended on how quickly they could gather the intelligence to send back to the Fuhrer.

\---

They'd been together a fortnight, and from the way Maes kept seducing him, Roy was pretty sure it wasn't just some kind of army stress relief thing. Something had happened to Roy that didn't happen to him very often, and that he was usually in the habit of avoiding. He was in an actual relationship.

So it probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when, one night, Maes said, "When are you going to start trusting me?"

Roy leaned up on his elbow to look at his bedmate. "I have a confession to make," he replied, deadpan. "I'm homosexual. I'm a faggot. A cocksucker. I like sucking cock. And fucking men up the ass. And getting fucked up the ass. Maes, is _any_ of this coming as a shock to you?"

"The homosexual bit," Maes said agreeably. "I thought you liked women, too. Or is that just deep cover?"

Roy arched an eyebrow.

"_I_ like women," Maes said. He reached up, molded his hands around something invisible. "Sometimes I could just really go for a nice pair of tits, you know?"

Roy hit him on the shoulder. Even though he'd successfully deflected Maes's question, he was too curious about why he'd asked it to let it go. "What exactly do you want me to entrust you with?"

"You know," said Maes. "Your cunning plan. The one you never talk about." At Roy's incredulous look, he said, "Have you forgotten I'm in Intelligence?"

"No," Roy said crossly. "It's why I didn't want to tell you. You'd probably have to report it or kill me or something."

Maes said, "Do I have to resort to sexual torture to get it out of you?"

Of course not. Roy wouldn't have admitted to having a cunning plan at all if he didn't mean to tell Maes about it. Maes talked enough that Roy had learned his politics in great detail, and Maes wasn't an ordinary dog of the military. Roy said, "I'm going to become Fuhrer. And then reinstate civilian government."

"That's awfully selfless of you," Maes said, "climbing the ranks just to give all your newfound power back to the people."

"Well, if they want to elect me president," Roy suggested, "I wouldn't turn the position down."

"President Mustang," Maes mused. "Has a nice ring to it."

\---

Maes shaved diligently every morning, with soap lather and a straight razor and his glasses pushed low on his nose so he could see the mirror clearly. Few soldiers bothered to bathe daily, let alone shave daily, but this was Maes's ritual.

"I'm an officer," he said. "I have to look nice."

Roy was an officer too, but he only shaved every other day. His stubble didn't really grow fast enough for him bother more often. He wasn't sure Maes's did, either; he'd yet to encounter any five o'clock shadow on the man. But he liked watching him shave, watching the razor slide up his throat, down his cheek, clean and smooth.

Roy liked to imagine himself shaving Maes, but he never asked Maes to let him do so. He couldn't expect Maes to allow him to put a blade to his throat. No one was that trusting.

\---

The first time Roy asked Maes to use his connections from Intelligence to Roy's benefit (as opposed to all the times when Maes discreetly handed him a sheaf of useful information completely unsolicited), it was not in service of the cunning plan. He'd heard about a mission whose strike team planned to spend a night in the village Marco was hiding in, or had been, the last time Roy had heard anything.

"Reroute them," Roy requested.

"Why?" Maes asked. "What will that do?"

"It will protect a friend," Roy said. At Maes's curious look, he elaborated, "An alchemist," and then, also, "a deserter."

Maes accepted that. He said, "I'll see if I can get Todd Larsen assigned to the team. I can tell the brass I'm just trying to do a favor for a friend, give him a mission that'll earn him more stripes, and then he'll take an alternate map from me, because he knows I've got my hands on the latest information."

Roy nodded. It was a sound plan.

A week later, he heard that the mission had gone bad due to faulty intel. He didn't let it bother him. It didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, because three weeks later, the war was over.

\---

Roy and Maes spent most of the train ride back to Central in the private compartment that his recent promotion afforded him. It was in between kisses pressed to the smooth line of Maes's jaw that he said, "You need a beard," so perhaps it wasn't that surprising when Maes replied:

"Or maybe a twirly moustache. I think I'd look good with one of those."

"Not enough of a villain," Roy disagreed. He paused. "You do know I mean--"

"I know what you mean," Maes interrupted.

He didn't sound happy about it, though. Roy set about convincing him. "It's for your protection," he said. "If anyone found out about my plans, and knew we were sleeping together, they'd assume you were passing me information. But if you're married and we're just friends--"

"I know," Maes repeated. "And I'm sure you've come up with an excellent reason why it should be me and not you, never mind the fact that it's horribly convenient for your commitment-phobia that we can't appear to be together--

"I'm not afraid of commitment," Roy protested.

"Yes, you are," Maes said flatly. "Even a sham marriage would give you hives--"

"It can't be a sham marriage," Roy interrupted. "No one can suspect it's not real for any reason. And it _can't_ be me because I can't afford to trust some woman enough to marry her, but you're in Intelligence, you have an excuse not to talk about things that shouldn't be talked about."

"Of course," said Maes angrily. "You're right. I'll have to bed her every night. And I should probably stop bedding you, because what good's a beard if you get caught having an affair?"

Even though a traitorous little piece of Roy screamed, "You're breaking up with me?", he'd thought this through already and knew that that had to be addressed at some point. "Yes, you're right," he said calmly. "It's too risky. We'll have to pretend we're just friends." He cleared his throat. "Deep cover."

"Just friends," Maes echoed. "I'd better get dressed, then."

\---

Maes wouldn't look at Roy as they got off the train together, but Roy couldn't truthfully attribute this to anything but his search for his family in the waiting throng. Roy found himself startled when, after Maes had spotted them, he grabbed Roy's arm and dragged him along.

"Ma!" he yelled. "Joannie!"

Two seconds later, Maes was covered in women. And a dog.

Roy listened to the joyful greetings with half an ear, before realizing there was another woman waiting. She was wearing a black sweater and a dark blue skirt. Roy almost didn't recognize her from the photograph, because she wasn't smiling. "Grace?" he asked. He didn't think he should be so familiar as to call her "Gracie," even though Maes had in all his stories of his childhood.

Maes whirled around, extricating himself from his family's attentions and shoving the elderly Fido down. "Gracie?" he said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, Maes," Gracie said, "Todd's dead."

And then Maes was holding her, and Joannie was saying, "It's been so horrible," and Maes's mother was saying, "We've been so worried for you, too."

Roy backed away. "I should find my father," he said. "I'm sure he's waiting for me."

Roy's father was dead, and had been for six years.

\---

Roy wasn't used to people who could out-think him, so he didn't know what to make of it when all the pieces of Maes's plan fell into place in front of him. It frightened him to paranoia--he began to wonder if Maes was playing a deeper game than he pretended, if Maes was investigating him, if Maes had been assigned to seduce him, if Maes was filing his report on Roy with the Intelligence office as Roy sat in his apartment and shook.

He waited for someone to come and arrest him. Alchemists--they would have to send alchemists. They couldn't risk what his resistance could do.

No one came.

He took his leave. He wore civilian clothes for two weeks straight. He went out to bars. He fucked women who wanted big, brave war heroes and felt like a liar.

He received his new orders. He learned he had an office. He had his choice of staff.

He didn't contact a single person he'd recruited to his cause during the war.

During the fourth week, he received a letter from Maes. It was two pages long.

The first page read,

> Roy,
> 
> Gracie and I are getting married. We've set a date for next summer--we feel any sooner would be disrespectful of the dead. Also, apparently weddings take a lot of planning. My mother and Gracie's are very excited. I suggested daisies as our flower since, I'm sure you remember, I used to take them to her when we were children. Gracie thought that was a nice idea but both our mothers declared it far too simple. They are fighting over tiger lilies (my mother's idea) and orchids (Gracie's). Alas, they would clash, or we'd suggest both as a compromise.
> 
> For your sake, I hope Gracie's mother wins. You'd look much better with an orchid in your buttonhole than a tiger lily. You will be my best man, won't you? Only, Joannie's going to be Gracie's maid of honor, and you'll have to dance with her, so you might want to consider platform shoes.
> 
> Are you allergic to anything? Mother's working on the menu. Duck à l'orange is the current main course, although that's sure to change after she ~~fights~~ talks with Gracie's mother.
> 
> Love,  
> Maes

It was very like him, with it babble and the question buried in the middle and his casual and probably entirely thoughtless choice of closing.

The second page, folded within the first, was full of jotted notes from Intelligence. Roy burned it without reading it. After all, Maes had killed Todd Larsen with faulty intel.

\---

The reply Roy sent Maes was one sentence long. It said,

> What does Grace say?

To Roy's surprise, Maes's answer was only one sentence long as well. It said,

> Gracie says you'd better take me to a strip club for my bachelor party, because we won't get another chance.

It did, however, have a postscript, in different handwriting.

> P.S. You might as well just call me Gracie; with Maes around, everyone will.

The thing which caught Roy's eye was the word "we." We won't get another chance. Not, I won't get another chance to go to a strip club, nor, You won't get another chance to take me to one.

We.

Roy sent back an acceptance, then called up Hawkeye and Havoc to ask if they'd like to work in his office. He had plans to work on.

\---

Maes's next missive, slid under the door by, in all likelihood, its own subject, read,

> Roy,
> 
> If you don't come out of your house in the next day, my spy is coming in--with _groceries._
> 
> Love,
> 
> Maes &amp; Gracie

Roy wasted a moment on disgust as couples who became gestalt entities, joined at the hip, before deciding to smoke his voyeur out. He poured a slick of oil into every pot and pan he owned and positioned them in front of each window in the house. He bounded them with flame-retardant arrays before lighting them, so their flames would be contained in bright, picturesque columns. These lights did not immediately draw attention, so for his next trick, Roy got out an old bedsheet, spread it on the floor to draw the flame-retardant array as large as he could on one side, then carried it up to the attic, out the window, and onto the roof. He laid it array-side down on the shingles, poured more oil on it, and lit it.

Then Roy sat down on the ridge of the roof to wait.

"Do not fear!" came a bellow from below. Roy squinted through the flames and darkness to see his would-be rescuer. He was bald except for a single lock of hair on his forehead and a great blond mustache, and was well on the way to making his chest as bare as his crown. Uniform jacket discarded, he yanked off the collared shirt and sleeveless undershirt together. "I, Alex Louis Armstrong, will save you with the firefighting techniques passed down through my family for generations!" He completed this remarkable speech with a couple of bicep flexes, tore the cap off of a fire hydrant, and alchemically aimed the flow at the roof of Roy's house.

Roy was doused. The oil kept burning. He shook his head like the wet dog he was, so that the water was, at least, not streaming into his eyes from the spikes of his hair. Roy decided a point-making gesture was in order.

He flipped up a corner of the sheet and chalked a symbol on the shingle underneath, careful to exclude himself from the affected volume, since this one was not as instinctive as fire manipulation. He activated the array with a touch, splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen. He held them apart for a few seconds, segregated by the ridge of the roof behind him, then scratched through the outer circle of the array with his fingernail to cancel out its effect.

The resulting explosion was extremely satisfying. He said, in what he hoped was a normal tone of voice, since he was half-deaf, "Major Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist."

Alex Louis Armstrong released the fire hydrant, allowing it to spray directly upward, and saluted stiffly. "Major Armstrong, Strongarm Alchemist, sir!" he shouted. Good thing, too, or Roy would never have heard him.

Roy said, "Would you like to come in, Armstrong?"

"Certainly, sir!" Armstrong shouted back. "Would you like some help down, sir?"

"No, thank you," said Roy. "I won't be a moment." He pulled out his gloves and used the array on the back to leech oxygen away from the roof, so the flames died down. He rolled the sheet up and headed back into the attic. He used the same trick to put out all the fires in the house, and then let Armstrong in the front door.

The man was a giant. Roy stared up at him and thanked his stars Maes had sent the man to _protect_ him, because he'd be in a bit of a situation if he had to fight him. Armstrong also hadn't put any of his shirts back on, and stood there with his muscles rippling.

Roy decided he didn't need to prove anything, and therefore didn't need to feel threatened. He said, "You're Maes's man?" Just to be _sure_ he didn't need to feel threatened.

"Yes, sir," Armstrong said. "Major Hughes has been concerned."

"Ah," said Roy. "What, exactly, did he tell you was the cause of his concern?"

Armstrong's great brows rose. "He said that you were not fully recovered from your experiences in Ishbal, sir."

Well, that was vague. Roy should have known he could trust Maes to be discreet. Not that he was sure it was necessary with this man--he was the most queenly butch Roy had ever met. Or possibly the butchest queen. He pondered which appellation was more appropriate for a moment before dismissing it as irrelevant. He took a further moment to try to compose the question he wanted to ask Maes about the actual nature of his supposed "intelligence" network, but decided that could wait, as well. He asked, "Am I correct in assuming that your job is primarily to protect me from myself, rather than from external threats?"

"Sir," said Armstrong, which wasn't a denial, and was therefore a polite agreement.

"You should probably stop calling me sir," Roy said, wondering if it was just a matter of seniority, and how long Armstrong had been a major. He said, "How, exactly, do you do that from outside?"

Armstrong led him to the front door and pointed up at the doorframe. There was an array painted over it. Roy would never have seen it in a million years if he hadn't been shown. The damn thing was four feet above his head. Probably comfortably within Armstrong's reach, though. "And that is?" he asked.

Armstrong said, "It warns me if the occupants of the house are in danger, sir," he said.

"Hmm," said Roy. "And if I were to, say, have an accident cleaning my gun, would this little thing give you enough warning to prevent it?"

"Sir," said Armstrong stiffly, "It would not. I would take it as a great personal favor if you would avoid accidents with your gun."

Roy hadn't actually taken out his gun since nearly a month before the war ended. It wasn't as if there had been much call for it--all they'd really wanted were his infernos. He said, "I shall do my best. And _please_ stop calling me sir. We're both majors."

"With respect, sir, we are not," Armstrong said.

"I beg your pardon?" said Roy.

Which was how Roy found out that he had a medal and a promotion waiting at Central HQ.

\---

The medal didn't surprise Roy. He'd already gotten a few, and so he understood that the government's philosophy was to hand them out as encouragement of all the acts one most hated doing. Since Roy hated himself quite a lot, he probably had a half dozen medals due to him.

The promotion did surprise him, though. Roy had somehow let himself forget that they owned, had thought he could be discharged like an enlisted man, or shuffled to some desk duty like an ordinary excess officer. But Roy was a State Alchemist, and one didn't--couldn't--resign from that. (Although, years later, Fullmetal seemed to think so, and Roy never disabused him of the notion, certain he could persuade Fullmetal to reclaim his pocket watch by less blunt means before it became a pressing issue. Fullmetal always treated the pocket watch as if it were the office itself. Roy hadn't even been issued a pocket watch until Marco had brought in his red stones.)

Roy was a State Alchemist, and that meant the State owned him, owned his alchemy, owned his research, owned his fire.

Before he went in to receive his chains and become the State's property again, Roy burned everything he'd been working on since he'd gotten home. He didn't want anyone to know what he'd been doing, or demand he do anything else with it. He created a special array to burn the notes, that mapped the course of the flames and wrote that map into a jewel--a ruby, that looked almost like one of the incomplete Philosopher's stones but wasn't, that hid in the rattlesome collection in his pocket watch. It wasn't a record of his efforts, to be read by anyone who knew it was there--it was only a record of how to reconstruct the record of his efforts, this bit of ash fits to this bit of ash, the most insane jigsaw in the world. And it was a useless record without the ashes themselves, which Roy filtered into half a dozen stoppered vials and hid in various places--under the loose stair halfway up to his apartment, in the heart of the elm tree in the park down the street, behind a fifth edition copy of Hasholles's _Fasciculus Chemicus_ that hadn't been checked out of the Central Library since 357, in the base of the fountain in front of the Capitol, among assorted urns in the Kessler mausoleum, and on the spice rack in his kitchen.

If anyone besides Roy ever found all these vials of ashes and figured out how to use the ruby to return them to their previous form, they would still have to deal with Roy's code. All the women who'd thought they were sleeping with a war hero were in it, and Gracie, too--Gracie stood in for the incomplete Philosopher's stones Roy had been trying to purify, before he had abandoned that idea as unworkable.

Roy was fairly satisfied that his research into human transmutation was safe. Part of him wondered if he ever really meant to use it, if it had been worth it to make it possible to recreate it at all, or if he should have just burned it cleanly with a snap of his fingers and let the ashes fall to the wind. He still had that option, even now--to take out the vial nestled between dill and paprika, crush it, wash its contents down the drain. A sixth of the material gone would make the rest unreadable.

It would have been a waste of a truly inspired method of hiding information, though. Roy fingered the ruby, its flaws a secret code, and felt a certain pride in his ingenuity. It had been a while since alchemy had made him feel that, feel clever. His alchemy was usually about brute force, and control of brute force. It could be fine work, but not clever.

Roy liked feeling clever. As a result, he probably seemed unnecessarily cheerful when he finally went into to HQ to claim his medal and promotion. He probably managed to convince his superiors that he enjoyed his career in the milatary and would be a gung-ho lieutenant colonel, fulfilling his duties with zeal.

The idea of putting one over Grand and the rest was all that kept him from shuddering with disgust at the idea of himself as a model officer. Of all things. _Zeal_.

\---

As it so happened, Roy didn't take Maes to a strip club for his bachelor party. There was a respectable restaurant, a handful of men Roy didn't know but whom Maes was happy to introduce him to--"Gracie's brother Hubert, her father Reginald, George (I told you about George, his old dog was Fido's mother), Frederich (don't say a word) who I went to school with, and Eric-Joannie's-boyfriend, you'd better not get fresh when you dance with Joannie at the reception or he'll deck you"--and afterwards, the party broke up, and everyone else went away. Roy and Maes ended up on a hillside with a bottle of wine, watching falling stars.

"I didn't think it would hit you as hard as it did," Maes said.

"What do you mean?" Roy asked. It was hard for him to look at Maes. Maes had grown some scruffy semblance of a beard, and it looked wrong on him. Roy thought he understood what it was supposed to mean, but he wished Maes would just shave it off.

"You were practically paralyzed for a month after," Maes answered. "Sorry. I kept tabs on you. I was worried when you ran off like that. I wasn't expecting Gracie to be at the station."

"You weren't?" Roy asked. He almost laughed. He stopped himself.

Maes gave him a strange look, bemused and troubled.

Roy said, "Let me get this straight. You knew I was going to tell you to get married, so you got her fiancé killed so she'd be available to fall into your arms, but you _didn't_ expect that she'd--"

Maes said, "You think I what?"

Roy just looked at him.

Maes sighed. "It wasn't like that. Yes, you're right. I got Todd killed." His grip on the wine bottle had turned white. "I murdered him. But it wasn't for me. I'm not that much of a bastard, Roy. He was cheating on her. One weekend he proposes to her and the next he's screwing some Ishbalite prostitute. And another the next. He called it 'planting the flag.' It was a joke that he'd claimed more territory than any man in his unit."

They made the same kind of jokes about Roy. He knew that, knew he had a reputation for skirt-chasing. He hadn't been sleeping with (or, more likely, raping) Ishbalite prostitutes, but he wondered if that mattered to Maes.

"I knew I was putting him in danger," Maes said. "I knew he wasn't qualified to go on that mission, and I knew I'd be sabotaging whatever chance he did have with that false map. I was hoping he'd be wounded, maybe come home with an auto-mail arm. I thought he deserved that. I thought that would be fair.

"I didn't really believe he'd die.

"And I didn't do it so I could have Gracie, for myself or because you thought so. So, no, I didn't expect her there at the station." Maes took a breath and stared hard at Roy. "Did you really think I--?"

"I don't know," said Roy. "For a while I wasn't even sure you were on my side, or if you were investigating me."

"You're crazy," Maes said in disbelief. "The thing that worries me about you coming up with a plot like that is that _you_ might've, if you thought you need to. Killed him because it was convenient."

Roy shook his head. "But you did it for her."

"Yeah," Maes agreed.

"Do you love her?" Roy asked, only it wasn't really a question.

"Yes, I love her," said Maes. "I love you, too, you know."

Roy said, "I'm not kissing you with that stupid beard fuzz."

Maes laughed and said, "I'm not kissing you, either. I'm getting _married_ tomorrow."

\---

Gracie's bouquet was composed of lavendar daylilies and cattleya orchids. Roy wore an orchid in his buttonhole. Gracie and Maes were both wearing white. Roy and Joannie and Gracie's father Reginald, who walked her down the aisle, wore dark grey. Joannie's dress had a shine to it, though, as if it would have been silver if it were just a little bit lighter. Roy's suit was just dark.

Gracie's mother had said it made him look terribly handsome. Maes's mother had pinched him on the ass. Apparently widows were allowed to do that, even though matrons had to keep to expressing their appreciation verbally. But it was nice that the two old ladies were agreeing on something.

When Roy toasted Maes and Gracie at the reception, he was as sincere as he knew how to be. He didn't say Maes would kill for her, because it wouldn't have been polite, and because he didn't know how true it was, and was rather ashamed that he'd been so convinced. But he did say Maes would do anything for Gracie.

That, he believed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Various parts of this chapter were originally posted:
> 
>  
> 
> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/769772.html>
> 
>  
> 
> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/697899.html>
> 
>  
> 
> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/770269.html>
> 
>  
> 
> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/770935.html>


	3. Chapter 3

That first trip to Rizenbül, Roy forgets whenever possible. He brazened his way through it by pretending to be someone he was not: someone who hadn't killed two doctors named Rockbell, someone whose stomach wouldn't betray him at the sights of mutilated or misshapen bodies, children and women, someone untempted and unaffected by human alchemy.

Nothing so different from his usual mask, but that was like a domino mask on a stick, feathered and flirtatious, disguise and distraction--not an Aquaroyan _carnivale_ mask, whole face covered, guess who I am and you die.

Aquaroyan masks, the kind that hid your identity so completely that you could fuck in the street, and your anonymity be safe, they had no mouths, just unbroken surface from the hook nose to the gilded contour of the chin. Maybe that was why Roy felt like he was suffocating under his.

The part after, the taking off the mask, Roy remembers with mixed feelings. He hates his own weaknesses, but the knowledge of who is--was--there to catch him makes him warm.

\---

Roy got into the train station in Central late on a Saturday evening, after most of the staff in his office had gone home. Falman answered the phone when he called, and Roy contemplated telling him to put down the filing and go home, but he was too grateful for the familiar voice to do more than ask for a driver.

Havoc showed up about twenty minutes later, out of uniform--but he was off-duty after nineteen hundred, and how Falman had even badgered him into coming to pick Roy up, uniform or no, Roy never knew. "How was your trip, sir?" Havoc asked, putting his suitcase into the trunk.

"Uneventful," Roy lied.

Havoc tapped a cigarette out of its pack and gave Roy an inquiring look. Roy's hand went to his pocket out of habit, and his fingers brushed the glove, but he thought better of it. "Not unless you want me to burn half your face off," he warned.

"Tired?" Havoc asked, opening his door for him. Roy got in. "I hate trying to sleep on trains," Havoc continued. "Too noisy, and the seats are too small."

Roy murmured something non-committal; it was an excuse, anyway.

Havoc got out his lighter for his cigarette before he got in the car, and rolled down his window to let the smoke out. He pulled away from the curb and drove off in the direction of Roy's apartment without being asked.

Roy settled back in the seat and closed his eyes, which was a mistake. After a few moments of listening to Havoc suck his breath through his cigarette and exhale it with gusto, Roy had to say, "Stop the car."

"Huh?" Havoc asked, over his shoulder, but pulled over.

Roy tumbled out and heaved into the gutter. There wasn't much in his stomach; he had bought some warm bread from a street vendor at the station, but he'd only eaten a few bites of it. He sat back on his knees and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, listening as Havoc shut the car off and came around.

"Do you have anything to drink?" Roy asked.

Havoc said, "Just a second," and reached into the cab. He handed a flask down to Roy.

Roy sipped and realized it was water. Responsible Havoc, carrying nothing but water in his flask when he had driver duty. Roy swished it around his mouth and spat. "Do you have anything stronger?" he asked.

"Looks like you got a start on that already, sir," Havoc said, sounding disapproving.

Roy gave him a startled, angry look. Even if he had been drinking--and he _hadn't_\--it was no business of Havoc's. He was Roy's subordinate, not his wife.

Roy stood up and got back in the car, holding onto the door handle so Havoc wouldn't be tempted to shut it for him. "Take me to a bar. That's an order, Lieutenant Havoc." He pulled the door shut with a satisfying slam.

Havoc said, "Yes, _sir,_" just loud enough to be heard through the glass, and tossed the butt of his cigarette down on the sidewalk by Roy's window.

And that was why Havoc sold him out after they got the bar.

\---

Maes was trying to soothe Roy, and kept ignoring his hands, clutching desperate fistfuls of cloth, and so Roy tried to kiss him to make him understand. Roy knew it for a mistake as soon as his lips touched Maes's and Maes went still from surprise. Roy jerked back as fast as he could, babbling.

"I'm sorry," he said, which was conditionally true--not sorry at all if it had worked, but very sorry if it had fucked up their relationship, whatever it was supposed to be now. "I didn't mean--" he said, which was an utter lie, and that was why he cut himself off in the middle of it. Maes was still standing there, slack-jawed. "I know--Gracie--and everything--" which was hardly coherent enough to have a value of verity. He waved his hand helplessly. He was halfway to the door. He didn't know what he'd do when he got out of it; someone (he suspected Havoc) had sold him out to Maes while he'd been beating up on himself (yes, fine, he had bad days; didn't everyone? especially the veterans), and Maes had come to drag him home, all of which added up to the fact that Roy had no car in the driveway, no means of escape.

Then along came Gracie, who Roy had almost forgotten was there until she came up in front of him. "I'm sorry," he repeated, knowing it wasn't worth anything. "I don't want to take him away from you," which he didn't, knowing how much Maes loved her. She raised her hand to slap him, he thought, and if he'd been more of a man, he'd have stood there and took it, because he deserved it, but he was a coward, and he stepped back again. There were six more hitching backwards steps to the door, he calculated, wondering if it would be worth it to turn tail and run, which made it barely two strides.

Gracie tried to follow him, and he backed away again, and she said, "Maes, will you make him hold _still_," and somehow she'd gotten him turned around, or maybe Maes was just fast (the bastard _was_ Intelligence; he had to have picked up _something_ useful) but before Roy could escape, Maes was behind him, holding him by his arms, fingers digging into his elbows when Roy tried to pull away. Roy closed his eyes and conceded, and Maes's grip loosened to just short of painful. Gracie took a step forward and Roy's eyes came open again. She stepped close enough to hold hands with Roy, her right hand, his left, down at their side, and she brought her left hand up, and he tensed, and then she laid it over Maes's hand around Roy's arm. And then she kissed Roy, and it was Roy's turn to be stunned and slack-jawed.

"You're staying," said Gracie. "With both of us."

Roy felt Maes drop his head against the nape of Roy's neck, and that weight just rested there, smooth with the split edge of his spectacles at the bottom, and Maes laughed against his jacket, and Roy felt something like a shiver, but warm, slide down his spine.

"I love you," said Maes, and Roy didn't know who he was saying it to.

Roy was tactician enough to recognize when he'd been outmaneuvered. There was nothing to do but surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter were originally posted:
> 
> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/769427.html>
> 
>  
> 
> Parts of this chapter had not previously been posted.


	4. Chapter 4

It was around midnight when Roy found his way to the Hughes's front door, which wasn't all that late for Roy, but he supposed it was for a family with a young child. That, he mused, must be why all the lights were out. He stood there in the rain for a while, debating whether or not to knock and wake the house, or just leave them be and go somewhere else. His office, maybe. He didn't feel like going home.

Eventually, the decision was taken away from him, because Maes caught him loitering and dragged him in, telling him, "You look like a drowned rat."

Maes took his jacket and tails, sat him down on the couch, and knelt down in front of him to pull his boots off. A towel fell on his head; Roy pushed it back and looked up. Gracie gave him a concerned smile and started rubbing his hair dry. Roy closed his eyes and let himself drift under their care, Gracie's massaging fingers on his scalp and Maes's warm hands on his ankles.

Maes got up to put Roy's boots by the door and went off somewhere in the house--Roy wasn't up to keeping track. In a few moments, Maes returned with a blanket, and Roy leaned forward enough for Maes to drape it around his shoulders.

"You want to talk about it?" Maes asked.

Roy shook his head. It wasn't as if it were anything new.

Gracie was toweling off his neck. She said softly, "Whatever it is, it'll be all right."

Roy didn't think so. It was something he'd been battling since Ishbal, and it hadn't turned out "all right" yet. It was the simple conclusion that if alchemists were incapable of creating life, then all they were good for was death.

Sometimes Roy just existed with that fact, went about his daily activities as if he weren't a bomb waiting to go off. Sometimes he had bad days, slow, melancholy days, which he usually treated by finding some anonymous woman to make love to, to seek that fleeting feeling of being alive in the motion and rhythm of sex. And sometimes, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

Sometimes, when Roy had to deal with the Elrics, he had to stop himself from screaming that Alphonse was as dead as their mother, and hadn't they learned their lesson yet, and why didn't Fullmetal just _give up?_

The only thing that drove it home harder than seeing the Elrics, bearing their damage in metal limbs and bodies, was when Roy had to toast somebody. In days of denial, Roy might tell himself that his particular alchemical affinity made things seem worse than they were; that just because flame destroyed, just because he was a killer, didn't mean all alchemy was fatal.

On days like this, Roy fought the urge to snap his fingers and immolate himself. Standing in the rain was another kind of extinguishment--it kept him from harm, but it swallowed up all his power, as well.

He wondered if Maes ever felt this way about his knives, or Hawkeye about her guns, but those were tools, things they could put down if they wanted to. Roy knew that alchemy was part of his soul. There was no escaping it, no putting it down.

Maes put an arm around Roy's neck and pressed their foreheads together. "Stop brooding," he said. "You think too much, you know that?"

Maes kissed him, and Gracie stroked his damp hair. Roy always felt like an interloper in their marriage, but Maes had been with him from the very first realization of the wrongness of his ability, and Gracie--

Roy sometimes thought he would never understand Gracie. Jealousy, he would have expected; tolerance, he might have believed; but her acceptance and welcome? These things baffled him, as much as he appreciated them. He felt unworthy.

"What's Uncle Roy doing here?"

Maes pulled away, smiling. "Hey, Pumpkin," he said, lifting Alicia and her stuffed animal onto his lap. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Everybody else is up," Alicia pointed out. Gracie laughed gently. Alicia regarded Roy with a serious expression. "Did you skin your knee?" she asked.

Roy was startled into saying, "I--ah--"

Gracie petted him. "Alicia fell off her tricycle today, chasing a lizard," Gracie explained. "She skinned her knee a little bit. It wasn't too bad, was it, honey? She got right back on and off she went," she told Roy.

Alicia pulled up her nightgown to show Roy the bandage on her knee. "Mama had to put alcohol on it," Alicia confided. "That hurt as much as when I fell."

"I'm sorry," Roy said gravely.

Maes kissed his daughter's hair and said, "Roy's not hurt on the outside. He's hurting on the inside."

Alicia bit her lip, and held out her stuffed white bunny to Roy. Instead of taking it, Roy opened his arms, blanket like a cape, and said, "Come here." Alicia climbed onto his lap and hugged him, the stuffed bunny flung over his shoulder.

Gracie said gently, "Alicia, honey, we all need to get back to bed, now. It's late for little girls and their Mamas and Papas."

"Is Uncle Roy staying?" Alicia asked hopefully.

Maes said, "Yes. He's going to sleep with Mama and me." Roy looked over Alicia's head at Maes, startled and curious at what Maes would tell his young daughter. Maes looked vaguely embarrassed and added, "You know how when you have a nightmare, we let you come sleep in the big bed with us? Like that."

Roy frowned. He glared at Maes to convey that there should be _no_ comparison between Alicia sleeping with her parents and Roy sleeping with her parents. Maes shrugged helplessly.

"Can I sleep in the big bed, too?" Alicia asked. "For Uncle Roy."

"Ah," said Maes. "I think Roy was hoping to sleep with us like grown-ups do."

Roy stared at Maes in dismay, but Alicia seemed unperturbed, if a bit disappointed. "Maybe we could have cocoa before we go to bed," she suggested. "Cocoa would make you feel better," she told Roy seriously.

Gracie said, "I don't know, baby. I think it might keep you up."

"It won't, either," Alicia declared. "It's warm milk to make you sleepy, but with chocolate so it tastes good."

Roy startled himself by saying, "I--I think I would. Like some cocoa." Holding Alicia in his arms felt... nice. She was a big, squirmy, happy bundle, and all she wanted was for him to be happy, too. And possibly to get to stay up late. Roy snuck a kiss on her temple as she beamed up at her mother over having her cocoa request seconded.

Gracie and Maes communicated silently for a moment before Maes decreed, "Only half a mug for little half-pints."

Alicia blew a raspberry, but was smiling immediately after.

Maes pushed himself off the couch and headed to the kitchen. He kissed Gracie on his way. "You want some, too?" he asked her.

"If you are," Gracie said.

Gracie took Maes's seat on the couch next to Roy and Alicia, which felt decidedly strange. Roy thought they probably looked like a man and his wife and their child, rather than a woman and her occasional threesome partner and her daughter. He started to hand Alicia back to Gracie, but Gracie stopped him with a hand on his arm and said, "You should come play with her more often. She loves you, you know. You're her favorite uncle. Isn't that so?"

Alicia said, "You're an alchemist like Ed and Al, aren't you? Why don't you ever make me flowers or dolls like they do?"

Roy blinked slowly, and said, "Well, missy, maybe Fullmetal and his brother are your favorite uncles."

"No, silly," said Alicia, "they're like my big brothers. Ed's my little big brother and Al's my _big_ big brother."

Roy grinned despite himself. "Yes, but don't say that to Fullmetal."

"Why not?" Alicia said. "He turns funny colors."

"And he can't even really get mad at her," said Gracie, smiling back, "because he's taller than she is."

Roy started snickering. "Very well," he said. "But the moment you get so much as an inch on him, you'll have to stop, do you hear, young lady?"

"Yes, sir!" said Alicia, with a funny little salute she must have learned from her father.

Maes came back in with a tray full of mugs. Alicia's was a little cup for her little hands, and only half full. She took it without complaint, swinging her legs against Roy's shins. Roy held her around the waist with one hand and took the mug with the other.

Roy sipped tentatively--he couldn't recall the last time he'd had cocoa. It was good, thick and warm and more chocolatey than sweet.

Gracie said, "_Maes._ Did you spike them all?"

"Whoops, no," said Maes, taking her mug. "Switch off, that was Roy's."

Roy accepted the new mug after a brief juggling act by Maes, who finally set the tray down on the end table in order to properly distribute the cocoa. Roy shrugged apologetically at Gracie. She didn't seem to be bothered by drinking after him, though. He tasted the cocoa again, wondering what Maes had spiked it with. After a moment, he recognized the flavor.

It was delicious, but he felt obliged to say, "What a thing to do to a perfectly good brandy," before guzzling half his mug.

Alicia started giggling at him.

Gracie said with hilarious dismay, "You've got it all over your _face_," with accompanying hand gestures at her own face.

Roy licked his lips, and wiped at his upper lip with the edge of the blanket.

Maes said, "You're not quite--here, let me get it," and he leaned over and licked Roy's nose.

Alicia's giggles turned into a shriek of laughter.

Roy sat very still for a moment, then, with great dignity and his little finger in the air, went back to drinking his cocoa.

Alicia settled back against him and returned to her own cup. Roy realized that it was very hard to maintain a properly morbid depression with a wriggling lapful of giggling girl and a stomach full of the Hughes's version of a hot toddy. After they had finished their cocoas, Maes and Gracie got up to clear away, and Roy drowsed on the couch, both arms loosely around Alicia.

"We'll never get them apart," he heard Gracie say.

"Yes, we will," Maes replied determinedly.

"Well, I'm not sure we should," Gracie countered. "I think we might had better let them both sleep with us tonight."

"Right," said Maes. "And who's going to fall out with four in the bed and the little one says, 'Roll over, roll over'?" He had a sing-song quality to his voice that puzzled Roy for a moment. It must be some nursery rhyme he didn't recognize, Roy decided.

Alicia said, "Not me and Uncle Roy. We'll be in the middle."

"Upsy-daisy," said Maes, holding out his arms. Alicia stood on Roy's thighs and wrapped her arms around her father's neck. "Little girls who drink cocoa in the middle of the night have to brush their teeth again before they come sleep with Mama and Papa," said Maes, picking her up.

"Not the toothpaste!" Alicia cried as Maes carried her away.

"Come on," said Gracie, holding her hand out to Roy. "We'll find you some of Maes's pajamas."

Gracie led Roy to the bedroom and matter-of-factly stripped him out of the blanket he still wore around his shoulders and the rest of his damp uniform. Roy felt oddly embarrassed about being naked in front of Gracie, and decided it was probably due to the lack of Maes's mitigating presence. Gracie laid his pants and shirt over the chair to the desk by the window, handed Roy some pajamas from a chest of drawers, and folded up the blanket while he dressed.

"It is all right, isn't it?" she asked him as he was buttoning up the top.

"It's a little long," he said, pushing the cuffs back.

"No, I mean--" Gracie gestured helplessly. "Having a big family sleepover instead of, you know, sex."

"Oh," said Roy. "It's nice," he said guardedly.

Gracie hugged him hard. "We love you, you know," she whispered in his ear. Roy didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just held her for a moment, until she let go of him.

Then Gracie guided him into the master bathroom and handed him Maes's toothbrush, saying teasingly, "Little boys who have cocoa in the middle of the night have to brush their teeth again, too."

Watching the pair of them brush their teeth in the mirror, side by side, Roy was hit again with the bizarre image of the man and wife. It lasted until Maes lurched in with Alicia riding his shoulders and steering him by her grip on tufts of his hair. Roy rinsed off the toothbrush and handed it over. Now the image in the mirror made him look almost like their son--superficially, because he didn't resemble either Maes or Gracie particularly, but Maes was so clearly the father in this image, standing a half a head and a whole little girl taller than Roy, that it wiped out the other, with just Gracie.

As promised, they put Roy and Alicia in the middle of the bed. Gracie said, "This'll be the girls' side, then," and climbed in next to Alicia, and then Maes set his glasses on the nightstand, curled up at Roy's back, and pulled the blankets over them all.

Warm and content, Roy slept.

The next thing Roy was aware of was Maes reaching over his head for the insistently ringing alarm clock on the headboard. He opened his eyes and saw Gracie leaning up on one elbow, covering a yawn with her hand.

"What time is it?" asked Alicia from somewhere under the blankets.

"Six. Go back to sleep, baby," said Gracie.

"Flip you for first shower," Maes said, sitting up.

"You can have it if you'll make breakfast," Gracie suggested.

"Pancakes!" said Alicia, throwing the covers back.

"Mm," Maes said agreeably, leaning over Roy and Alicia to kiss his wife.

Gracie kissed him back, hand on Roy's arm, and then got up, stretching. "I'd better iron your uniform," she said thoughtfully to Roy.

"She never irons my uniform," Maes grumbled teasingly.

"I can do that," Roy said, starting to get up.

"No, you don't," said Gracie, stopping him. "You're our guest. Besides, you have to stay with Alicia. She doesn't have to get up until seven, but it's no fun being the last one in the bed the morning after." She winked at Roy just before she went around the bed, past his view.

"Anyway," said Maes, "you're not getting at the shower for a while yet."

When both her parents had gone out, Alicia confided to a confounded Roy, "Papa always makes pancakes when he makes breakfast. Mama sometimes makes oatmeal, but Papa's oatmeal comes out lumpy--or eggs, but Mama says Papa could burn eggs cooking over a match with a cast-iron skillet. Maybe he'll make them funny shapes."

"The skillets?" Roy guessed.

"The pancakes," Alicia corrected him. "One time he made me a pancake shaped like a four-leaf clover."

"If you're lucky enough to get an extra hour of sleep," Roy said gruffly, "you should _sleep._" He turned over and stuck his head under Maes's pillow.

Alicia giggled and snuggled against him, radiating heat and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

A while later, Maes came out of the shower, glasses foggy. Gracie came in, still in her nightgown, and hung Roy's uniform in the closet before claiming the bathroom for herself. Roy didn't recall her coming out and dressing, but she was wearing a blouse and skirt when she shook him awake.

"Rise and shine," she said.

Roy rubbed his eyes.

Gracie picked up Alicia. "Come on, honey," she murmured. To Roy, she said, "Shower's free. I put your clothes in the closet."

"Thanks," said Roy, sitting up.

He padded into the steamy bathroom and shrugged out of the pajamas before his misty reflection. This felt odd; he almost always shared this shower with Maes, a brief, almost guilty moment with just the two of them, no Gracie.

Also, the hot water was long gone.

Shivering, Roy sketched an alchemical array on the tile with the edge of the soap and activated it, heating up the pipes. The water came out nearly scalding, so Roy wiped the array away with a washcloth. The water cooled down gradually.

While Roy was rinsing his hair, Maes knocked and stuck his head in the bathroom, calling out, "Do you like currants in your pancakes?"

Currents, Roy thought, bemused, watching rivulets of water run around his toes. "Sure," he called back.

"Good, because I already put them in the batter," Maes said. He closed the door, then opened it again. "How about nuts?"

"Nuts are fine," Roy said, wondering if breakfast would survive Maes's "little bit of this, little bit of that" method of cooking.

"I think I might have some pecans shelled," Maes said, and closed the door again.

Roy got out and toweled off. He wiped the mirror down to stare at his hair morosely. No matter what he attempted with it, it inevitably returned to loose spikes of bangs, falling over his forehead.

Roy went to the bedroom and dressed. His gloves and watch were on the desk; he pocketed them. Then, in full uniform minus the boots, he went out.

"There you are," said Gracie. "Comb Alicia's hair, won't you?" she asked, holding out an armful of girl-child. "I've got to get the garbage out, they're picking up today."

Gracie bustled off, leaving Alicia with Roy. Alicia said, "The comb is in my dresser. I'll sit on the couch and you stand behind me."

"All right," said Roy.

Alicia was wearing a yellow dress, and she played with the pleats in the skirt while Roy combed her hair. "Papa says you used to be his boyfriend," she said.

Roy narrowly avoided pulling Alicia's hair. He said, loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen, "Boyfriend?"

Maes's face appeared in the window above the counter. "Well, I couldn't exactly say 'Uncle Roy was my F-U-C-K buddy,' could I?"

Alicia said, "What's a fuck?"

Roy _did_ pull her hair that time. Alicia pulled away from the comb, hand on her head, and looked up at him reproachfully.

Gracie, wastepaper basket in hand, said, "_Maes._"

"I spelled it!" said Maes.

"I told you she's too old for that," said Gracie. She knelt down in front of Alicia. "It's a swear word," she said. "It just means that they slept together like grown-ups do, but they were young men and young men think they have to swear about everything. We know better, right baby?"

"Yes," said Alicia, swinging her legs. "Are you going to finish my hair?" she asked Roy.

Roy decided that he knew nothing about children.

After Gracie had gone out with the trash, Alicia asked, "Did you love my Papa?"

The kitchen got very quiet.

Roy said, as calmly as he could, "Yes, I did." He cleared his throat. "I still do."

"Spatula, spatula, where's my spatula," said Maes, banging around the kitchen.

Alicia said, "If you loved my Papa and Papa loved you," which was nearly enough for Roy to accidentally pull her hair again, even though he already knew how Maes felt, "why did Papa marry Mama?"

From the silence, Roy could only surmise that Maes had found his spatula. "Lots of reasons," he said finally. "He loved your mother, and he wanted to be a father."

"But why didn't he marry _you_?" Alicia demanded.

Roy thought the desire for fatherhood should have covered that, but he tried another tack. "Well, Amestris has a law that says a man can only marry a woman."

"That's a stupid law," Alicia declared.

"There's an even stupider law," Maes said, "that says you can only get married to one person, even if you love two."

"You _did_ want to marry Uncle Roy!" Alicia crowed.

Roy felt himself blushing. He put down the comb before any further accidents could occur.

Alicia turned, leaning on the back of the couch. "Uncle Roy, if you could marry anyone you wanted to, who would you marry?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Roy. "I can think of half a dozen generals off the top of my head. And the Führer, of course."

"Bite your tongue! Cover your ears!" Maes said. He waved a batter-covered spoon at his terribly amused daughter. "We marry for love in this family, and don't you forget it, young lady."

Gracie startled Roy by wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "But if you could marry anyone you wanted, would you marry _us_?" she asked, close to his ear.

Roy held himself still for a moment, ignoring Maes's head sticking out of the kitchen window. Then, because it didn't matter, because it could never be true, he allowed himself to say, "Yes."

Gracie gave him a peck on the corner of his jaw and whispered, "Knew it," and Alicia hugged him around the middle, face pressed to his stomach. After that, Roy rather regretted having said so.

Maes said, "Come help me set the table, Roy," and Roy gratefully extricated himself.

"Sorry about that," Maes said in the kitchen, pointing to one of the cabinets with his spoon. Roy opened it. It contained plates. He counted out four as Maes went on, "She sits on things and then wants to know more later, so this morning while I was getting her dressed, she asked me why we were kissing last night and why you were going to sleep with Mama and Papa."

Roy nodded. "You tell her a lot," he said, curious.

Maes shrugged, apparently intent upon his skillet. "We tell her the truth." He gave Roy a sidelong smile. "You did good."

Roy started to grin. "And you taught her a dirty word."

"I know," Maes said mournfully. "Now all I have left to teach her is see-you-next-Tuesday."

Roy snorted and got some napkins from the basket on the counter. "Forks?"

"The drawer by the sink. There's coffee," Maes added, as if Roy hadn't been tantalized by the scent since getting out of the shower.

"Did Gracie make it?" Roy asked. Coffee fell into the realm of breakfast foods beyond Maes's culinary skills.

"Yes. Picky bastard."

Even as domestic as this, Roy thought as he set the table, being with Maes didn't evoke the same iconic images he got when he watched himself with Gracie. The only false picture overlaid on him and Maes was the one he deliberately projected--old army buddies, beer-drinking, arm-punching, back-slapping army buddies. Roy could even see himself sliding into that role, nearly had when Maes had first married Gracie.

He wondered if he could fit into the other role, the husband role he kept seeing with Gracie. He thought it might be possible, but it would be a pale imitation of Maes. He imagined Gracie saying "I love you" instead of "We love you" the night before, and he knew how to respond to that, could see himself kissing her. But it would be a false and empty kiss without Maes at his back, guiding his hands, his hips.

Sometimes, Roy felt as if he were nothing more than a conduit through which Maes made love to his wife. Sometimes he felt more love and concern than he could handle or believe in, sandwiched between them. It was safer to be a conduit and just let all of that pass through, as if none of it were intended for him.

"You sit here, next to me," Alicia ordered Roy, pulling at his jacket sleeve. Gracie smiled and set their respective milk and coffee at adjacent plates.

It was harder to displace Alicia's affection for him, Roy thought ruefully, sitting down.

Maes served the pancakes. Roy noted with vague horror that his were heart-shaped. The currants had even given them a reddish tinge. Alicia passed him a pot of honey, which Roy passed on to Gracie without using. The pancakes did not need to be any sweeter. He glared at Maes. Maes smiled innocently.

Roy cut his pancakes out of recognizable shape and started eating. They were good. The coffee? Also good. Roy thought he could get used to this.

"What class do you have today?" Maes asked Alicia. "The drawing one, or--?"

"Class?" Roy asked. Surely that much time hadn't slipped away from him without his noticing. Alicia was too young for school, wasn't she?

"We're taking her to some art classes," Gracie said. "A chance for her to be creative, and meet some other children."

"It's pottery today," Alicia told her father and Roy, swinging her legs and making her chair squeak.

"She's making us presents," Gracie said. "We're not allowed to know what they are. Maybe you'd tell Uncle Roy, though?" she suggested to Alicia.

Alicia tugged Roy down and Roy bent, offering her his ear. "A picture frame for Papa," she whispered, "and a flower vase for Mama. I wanted to decorate it with little orchids but I _can't_," she informed him, aggrieved. "They're too complicated. They looked like squished bugs, so I had to just make boring flowers."

"I'm sure they'll be lovely nonetheless," Roy assured her.

Alicia smiled. "At least they can be purple," she said. She drew back; the confidence was over. "They have all kinds of different colors of glazes. The teacher did alchemy for it--there's one glaze that makes things all rainbow-y and everyone wants to use that one. _I_ don't, though. I want to pick what things are what colors."

"Do you want to make something for Uncle Roy?" Gracie asked, sipping coffee.

"That's really not necessary--" Roy tried to say.

"Nonsense," said Gracie.

Alicia was looking at him measuringly. "Blue," she said. "You and Papa always wear blue."

"It's the uniform," Roy said.

"It's your color," Alicia said firmly. "I'll make you something blue."

The old rhyme, _Something old, something new, something borrowed..._ flitted through Roy's head. He really had to stop letting them put him in this position. He looked up to see Maes grinning at him. He stifled a sigh and said, "I shall treasure it," to Alicia.

Roy helped Maes clear away and wash up. He thought the breakfast clean-up went fairly quickly between him and Maes, but as he was patting the skillet dry, Gracie pressed some money into Maes's pocket and said, "You'll have to hire a cab to get into work on time."

Roy set the skillet on the stove and checked his pocket watch, surprised to find she was right. He supposed it had been a full morning, with the Hughes family attempting to induct him and all. When he looked up, Gracie was kissing Maes on the lips. "You should tell him," she said softly, a breath away from him.

Tell me what? Roy wondered, certain he was the "him."

Maes said quietly back, "I don't want him to feel... beholden."

Beholden? Curiouser and curiouser. Roy pretended he hadn't heard and dried the plates.

Gracie's only reply was, "Love you," before she caught Alicia's hand and headed for the door.

Maes gave Roy a look before he went to call for a cab, worried and anxious. Roy did his best to look calm and wondered what the hell Gracie wanted Maes to tell him. He almost thought Maes wasn't going to tell him at all, as they rode the entire way downtown in silence, but just before they arrived Maes opened the cab door, leaned out, and called up to the driver to make the block a few times. The driver said something Roy didn't catch and the horses trotted on.

"The thing is," said Maes, "I don't know if you've ever done the math, but--you remember the week you got back from Risenbul?"

Roy closed his eyes. That week came back vividly, bodies twined, desperate and needy. He'd just seen an attempted resurrection. He couldn't say which was more shocking, that broken thing wet and raw on the floor, or the boy with half his limbs gone--but alive. He'd needed Maes and Gracie both, then, with their whole bodies pressed against him to keep him sane.

That had been the spring. How long after--how late in winter--

"Gracie says she thinks the chances are about fifty-fifty," Maes interrupted his calculations.

"I remember that week better than _that,_" Roy said acidly.

"I know, so do I," said Maes with a rueful smile. "I think she said that for the sake of _my_ ego."

Always, always, Maes in him, him in Gracie, their arms and legs around him like a cage for a madman, rocking slowly, keeping him bound to the earth. Roy thought about that word Maes had used, _beholden._ Maes hadn't meant the way they held him; they freely gave him that pressure, that reassurance, as often as he dared to ask for it.

Maes seemed to be waiting for something. He was watching Roy carefully, looking increasingly concerned. Roy said, "Thank you for telling me." He found he meant it.

Maes engulfed him in a long, hard hug, and kissed him after that. "You should come over more," he said, and then, "Not that you should feel that you _ought_ to--" and that was what he'd meant by _beholden._ Roy preferred to think of it the other way.

"I will," said Roy.

"Good," Maes said firmly.

Later, at his desk, Roy had trouble concentrating on the papers Hawkeye set in front of him. He was counting in his head, how soon would be too soon, how often too often. Tonight, he thought, would it be too soon? Would two nights in a row be too often?

"Is something the matter, sir?" Hawkeye asked him sharply, to bring his attention back to his paperwork. She was leaning over him, one hand on the back of his chair, the other on corner of his desk.

Roy looked up her. He didn't know what possessed him to say it, but it slipped out of him anyway. "I've just been told I have a daughter."

Hawkeye gawked for a moment, then stood stiffly, hands behind her back. "Congratulations, sir," she said. "How is she?"

Roy smiled. "She's beautiful."

And he'd thought he was cursed, fated to create only death. He'd never thought he could make anything so beautiful, but she was. Alicia Hughes, his daughter and Gracie's and Maes's, was beautiful.

\---

Alicia made Roy a pocket watch, which he keeps on a heavy chain in his left pocket. It is only right at ten to two, but he doesn't mind. She cut a perfect circle out of a sheet of clay with a drinking glass and then smoothed the sharp edges away from the top and bottom with her hands, so that Roy can sometimes find the indentations of her fingerprints. There is one near the four that his pinkie fits in, and another over the eleven that he rubs with his thumb, as if the watch was a good-luck charm.

The back of the watch is glazed blue to match his uniform. The face is stained white, with yellow hands and yellow numbers (carved in Gracie's careful hand but painted in Alicia's, Roy is told) and a yellow rim, with a clear glaze over the whole. Alicia wanted these fixtures to be gold, but yellow was as near as her palette allowed.

The watch was thrice-fired when Roy received it--it went into the kiln once to harden the clay, once for the blue glaze on the back, once for the clear glaze on the front, after the white and yellow stain had dried. It was exposed to fire once more after that in Roy's keeping, causing the glaze to crack along the minute-hand. Roy could have smoothed this hairline fracture with a simple array, but he leaves it as a reminder to himself that his alchemy can so readily destroy so much, even without his intention.

Humans are more fragile than pocket watches, and less easily mended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter were originally posted:
> 
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> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/701558.html>
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> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/1051486.html>
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> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/702438.html>
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> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/707138.html>
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> <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/707344.html>


	5. Chapter 5

Between a doctor's appointment, last minute arrangements, and a delayed train, Roy didn't actually speak to Gracie's parents until about two hours before the ceremony. There was something surreal about it, about her grabbing him by the arm, dragging him over, and announcing, "Mama, Papa, this is Roy, the man I'm going to marry."

"I _remember_," said Gracie's mother appreciatively.

Roy instinctively put one hand behind his back to cover his rear.

"You look familiar," said Gracie's father.

"_Papa,_" said Gracie, "I already told you--he was Maes's best man. You met him then. Remember?"

Gracie's father examined him closely. "You changed something," he accused.

"Lost an eye, sir," Roy suggested.

"That must be it," Gracie's father said. "And who's your best man, then?"

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," Roy answered.

"Strange thing," Gracie's father mused. "I don't think I've ever seen so many officers at a corporal's wedding before."

"What can I say, sir," Roy said. "My superiors love me."

Gracie squeezed his hand and snickered.

"So which one is this Hawkeye?" Gracie's father asked.

"The striking blonde hiding behind the floral arrangements," Roy said, pointing.

"Huh," said Gracie's father.

Gracie had assured Roy her family would be unbothered by a female best man. It was this assurance that allowed him to keep his calm.

That and the fact that Gracie was still holding his hand.

"Son," said Gracie's father, after a long pause. Roy steeled himself. "You're marrying my daughter today, so you really shouldn't be looking at--hm." He paused again, and looked at Gracie. "Pumpkin, _do_ you mind if he looks at striking blondes?"

Roy took a second and a half to process the implications behind that question, and felt his heart stop.

"Considering Riza would put a bullet in his kneecap if she caught him at it," Gracie said breezily, "he's welcome to look wherever he wants."

"Bit of a dyke, then, eh?" asked Gracie's father. "You going to marry her after this one kicks it?"

Roy wondered if there was a discreet place to draw an array to make the earth open up beneath him. Gracie's father was no less terrifying for the _twinkle_ in his eye.

Gracie said, "Yes, Papa, we've already got the china patterns picked out."

"Don't be ridiculous, darling," said Gracie's mother. "You don't need china for a third marriage."

"Probably not," Gracie agreed, "but it'll be Riza's first, and I'd hate to deprive her."

"Very thoughtful of you," her father commended her.

"There's thoughtful and then there's wasteful, Reginald," said Gracie's mother.

"So don't buy them the china," said Gracie's father. "Get them a nice vase, or something."

"What is it with vases?" asked Gracie's mother. "You always want to get people vases. You're getting married, have a vase. Happy birthday, have a vase. It's our anniversary, have a vase."

Gracie pulled Roy away, grinning. When they'd made their escape, Gracie said, "See, I told you it'd be all right."

Roy nodded slowly. "I'm starting to see why you didn't bat an eyelash about me and Maes." If her family could joke about her marrying Hawkeye like it wasn't anything, then... He shook his head, confused in spite of himself.

"Just now?" Gracie asked, looking half-amused, half-pitying. "You're just now figuring that out?"

Roy gave her a dirty look. "I was a bit preoccupied at the time!"

Gracie gave him a peck on the cheek and said affectionately, "Idiot."

Roy put his arms around her and let his head rest on her shoulder. "Why isn't this as strange for everyone else as it is for me?" he asked plaintively.

Gracie pressed a sideways kiss to his jaw. "Most of my family has an inkling of how close we were," she told him.

Roy squeezed his eye shut and tried even more desperately to hide in her shoulder. "He knew. Your father knew and he was _screwing_ with me."

Gracie snickered. "Go talk to your men," she suggested. "They're all baffled beyond belief. You can be as mysterious as you want about it. It'll make you feel better."

"Why," Roy groaned, still stuck on her family. "Why do they know?"

"Well," Gracie said, stroking his hair, "a girl tells her mother things. And Mama tells Papa things--that's what marriage is about, you know. And Maes told his sister things--"

"Joannie?" Roy asked, jerking back to look at her in horror. "Joannie knows? Joannie, your matron of honor? Joannie, who's putting flowers in Alicia's hair right now, that Joannie?"

Gracie patted his arm comfortingly.

"I'm your dirty laundry," said Roy, imagining them gossiping over knitting or something. Gracie didn't knit, or crochet, or embroider, or anything--she even kept her regular old sewing needles locked up in a drawer to keep Alicia out of them. And Joannie--if Joannie had ever touched a ball of yarn, Roy was a fish. He felt himself start to gasp in helpless laughter.

"Breathe," Gracie said, rubbing his back. "I'm making you an honest man today."

Roy did laugh--silently, breathlessly, into her shoulder--at that. He couldn't help it.

"If it's any comfort," Gracie offered, "I don't think my brothers know."

This, it turned out, was wrong, or at least half-wrong. On his way to speak with Armstrong to make sure there would be no embellishments in the vows, Roy was ambushed by Gracie's younger brother, James, who declared, "I just want you to know that you're an inspiration to me."

"That's very nice," said Roy. "I'm glad for you."

"I mean it," said James. "You're very brave. I don't know if I'll ever be as brave as you."

"Thank you," Roy said flatly, non-plussed. It had been awhile since anyone had lauded him for that war hero crap.

"To say to a man," James went on, "that you love him so much that you don't care that he married someone else, you still want to be with him--"

"I don't know what you've heard," Roy said, "but it's just rumors. False rumors. I assure you."

James caught him by the arm--his left arm, which meant Roy didn't see it coming, which was the only reason James actually caught him. "Do you think you could ever love someone like me?" James asked him moonily.

"I'm marrying your sister," Roy pointed out.

"But--" James said.

"Your _sister_," Roy repeated. "Even if I were remotely inclined in your direction, which I'm not, that would be _wrong._"

James stared at him soulfully.

Hawkeye said, "Sir, it's time for the ceremony."

"_Thank_ you," said Roy, so relieved that he forgot to be nervous until after he'd signed the marriage license and the paperwork for Alicia's legal guardianship, and it was time to exchange rings. Gracie put _Maes's_ ring on his finger, and even though they'd discussed that ("Non-traditional, but I think, in this case, it's fitting," she'd said), it still shook him. He nearly dropped her ring when Hawkeye handed it him, and Gracie had to help him get it on her own finger.

Then Armstrong shoved them into the foyer and Hawkeye took up guard position, to allow them their moment of privacy before their friends and family descended to congratulate them. In theory, this was supposed to be a time for quiet introspection. In practice, Roy recalled, he'd stood guard while Maes and Gracie made out in the broom closet. At least, he'd thought they'd just been making out, and at the time, he'd _hoped_ they'd just been making out. And now...

Gracie said, "Penny for your thoughts."

Roy smiled a little. "Just that, if your first wedding had been a few years later, the pair of you probably would have dragged me in the closet with you."

Gracie said, "I miss him, too." She hugged Roy around the shoulders and asked, "Are you all right?"

Roy rubbed the ring on his left hand with his thumb. He didn't really feel up to answering the question, so he said, "Your brother propositioned me."

"Hubert?" Gracie asked, tearing away from him to try to look through the frosted glass in the door.

"James," Roy answered, shuddering at the thought of hulking Hubert coming after him.

"Oh, well, that's all right then," said Gracie. "James is _much_ prettier."

"_Gracie,_" Roy said, scandalized.

Gracie snickered at him.

"Your family terrifies me," Roy admitted.

"You really should go talk to your men," Gracie urged him. "They're _your_ family. It's always easier to face your in-laws with your own family at your back. Trust me."

"But you get along fine with Maes's family," Roy said.

"Isn't that proof I know what I'm talking about?" Gracie asked.

"Don't we have to eat cake or something?" Roy said.

"Roy Mustang, are you _avoiding_ them?" Gracie asked him incredulously.

"No," Roy lied. She'd said before that he could be as mysterious as he liked with them, but he couldn't, really. If he spoke with them, he'd have to tell them, and that was just unthinkable.

"Then go," said Gracie.

"We just got married," Roy said plaintively.

"And we'll still be married in an hour," said Gracie. "You'll feel better for it. I promise."

Feeling as if he were facing an execution squad, Roy opened the door. "Hawkeye," he said, "assemble the troops. We're having a last-minute bachelor party."

Hawkeye, still in stiff-backed guard stance, turned only her head to frown at him. "You got married ten minutes ago, sir."

"Belated," Roy corrected himself. "We're having a belated bachelor party."

"It's all right, Riza," said Gracie. "He just needs a little breathing space before my family tries to traumatize him with our progressive ways again."

"Incest is _not_ progressive," Roy protested.

"He's not _your_ brother," Gracie answered. She kissed him and shoved him out.

Hawkeye managed to get everyone together in short order, and cleared them a table with (Roy suspected) the sheer power of her glare. She seated Roy between herself and Havoc, with Breda, Fury, and Falman opposite. She sat at Roy's left hand--once, he would have put her at his right, but now, she was the single one of these soldiers Roy most trusted to have on his blind side.

Not that the rest weren't good men, but some of them were liable to play tricks on him if they thought they could get away with it.

Havoc said, "Sorry I couldn't get any strippers on such short notice, but Armstrong sends this." He set a bronze statuette of a half-nude Armstrong, muscles rippling, on the table.

"Thank you," said Roy, feeling oddly touched.

"Thought you'd appreciate that," Havoc said, sounding smug.

"He couldn't come himself?" Roy asked curiously.

"He said he needed to speak with one of Mrs. Hughes--sorry, Mrs. _Mustang's_\--brothers," Breda answered, grinning.

"Comparing biceps with Hubert again?" Roy asked, valiantly not looking his shoulder to check.

"No, the other one," said Breda. "Said the guy needed some guidance, or something."

Roy gave that a moment's thought and said, "Thank you, Breda, that may be the best news I've heard all day."

Breda and the rest looked at him curiously, but Roy declined to enlighten them on that matter. Havoc said, "Come on, what do we have to do to get you talking? We've got bets to settle!"

Roy considered, then decided some Dutch courage was in order. "Alcohol might help."

"Right-o, get the jaws greased, so to speak," said Havoc.

"I've got a bottle of the champagne," Fury offered.

Not quite what Roy usually chose to remember Maes with, but he said, "That'll do. Pop it, Sergeant."

Fury did, and someone produced champagne flutes, which Fury filled for everyone except Roy, who took the bottle away from him and up-ended it directly into his mouth. After a long, fizzy drink, Roy burped and asked, "All right, what do you lot want to know?"

"Were you having an affair with her?" Breda asked eagerly. "You know, before?"

Before, when it would have been an affair, rather than a friend comforting a grieving widow, or however they imagined it. "Yes," Roy said slowly.

There were groans all around, including an admonishing "_Sir_," from Falman and a heartbroken "You _wouldn't_," from Fury. Havoc's groan appeared to be related purely to the thickness of his wallet, however, as he was counting out a large stack of bills for Breda.

"And no," Roy continued pleasantly. He turned his head in Hawkeye's direction--not enough to see her, just enough to be clear that he was addressing her. "Is it an affair if her husband is present the whole time?" he asked.

"I believe the term you're looking for is '_ménage à trois_,' sir," Hawkeye said coolly.

Roy tried to remember what he knew of Gallic. "I did not set up house with them," he answered. "As much as they wanted me to."

"But does that count or doesn't it?" Breda protested.

"Not a chance," Havoc said, sweeping his money off the table. To Roy, he said, "So--you never really broke up with him, then."

Roy swallowed some more champagne. "Oh, yes, I did," he said. "It didn't _stick_, but I damn well tried to."

"I understand, sir," Havoc said, clapping him on the shoulder. "He could be pretty stubborn."

"You were involved with Brigadier General Hughes?" Falman asked.

Was that a note of regret in his voice? Oh, Falman, thought Roy. So proper. Betting with his office mates was the only vice they'd ever talked him into, and now it was biting him in the ass. Roy nodded solemnly. "Since he was a damn lieu." He drank fondly to Hughes's memory.

"I _told_ you," Havoc crowed. "Fork over!"

Falman, Breda, and, to Roy's surprise, even Hawkeye passed money across the table to Havoc. Falman and Breda managing to miss that, Roy could believe, but Hawkeye? She'd been there at the time. Had it really been that invisible? "I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that," Roy said honestly.

Hawkeye took the bottle away from him, which was nearly empty at this point anyway. "Better to stop at maudlin, sir," she told him kindly.

Roy knew he should have eaten breakfast.

There was a tug at Roy's uniform tails. He half-turned in his seat, and saw Alicia there, in the blue dress like her mama's, an orchid and a forget-me-not still tucked behind her left ear. "Hey there," Roy said, lifting her up on his lap. "How are you?"

Alicia hugged him and looked shyly at the rest of the table. Come to think of it, it was pretty amazing she'd come over on her own--she'd been pretty quiet since her papa died. Roy kissed her temple.

"Mama said you all knew my papa," Alicia said.

And who would have thought the little girl would be braver than all the big soldier boys. They all shifted uncomfortably, trying to come up with something to say. "We were just talking about him," Roy told her. "I wish he were here."

"Me, too," Alicia whispered, hugging him.

"I miss him," Roy confessed. Havoc was hissing, "Sir, _sir_," but Roy didn't pay him any mind. "I loved him... _so_ much."

Damn, that champagne could sneak up on you. It pretended to be light and bubbly, but it was deadly. The rational corner of Roy's mind knew Alicia wouldn't mind what he'd said, and that was the important thing, but he also knew he'd just scandalized his men, saying that in front of her.

Havoc, though, might just have been worried about matters financial again. "Sh--darn it, sir," he said, counting from his ill-gotten gains. He pushed the money over to Fury.

"Havoc?" Roy asked, blinking.

"Sorry, sir, I thought it was--purely physical," Havoc said. _Just sex_, he would have said, if Alicia wasn't on Roy's lap. "I didn't realize it was true love."

Roy turned his head to center Fury in his field of vision. "Fury?"

"But it was so obvious!" Fury burst out. "All those phone calls..."

"That always ended because the colonel hung up on him!" Havoc pointed out.

"Whenever Papa said you should get married," Alicia said.

Havoc turned and stared. "_That_ was what you were yelling at him for?"

Roy smiled and said, "Silly man, trying to get me to marry someone else. What on earth was he thinking?"

At this point, it was possible that Roy was purposefully scandalizing them for his own enjoyment. They did make such amusing faces.

"You see?" Fury said to Havoc. "And all those secret reports--symbols of devotion!"

"Loyalty!" Havoc answered. This seemed to be a fairly well-rehearsed argument. Roy wondered how often they'd had it. "_Loyalty_," Havoc repeated. "It can happen without falling in love!"

Fury gave Havoc a hurt look, then looked to Roy pleadingly.

"It's all right, Cain," Roy said, "I love you, too."

Oh, the beautiful looks of shock. Roy slung his arm around Havoc's shoulder, purely because Havoc was in range, and declared, "I love you _all._ You've been so good to me..."

From his left, Hawkeye said stoically, "Yes, sir. We love you, too. Perhaps you'd like to go sit with your wife for a while."

"Hm," said Roy, even though he was still leaning on Havoc, because it was fun. "I think Hawkeye's idea may have some merit. What do you think, little lady?"

Alicia nodded. "Can I ride on your shoulders?" she asked.

"I don't see why not," Roy said, picking her up as he stood.

"Sir, I'm not sure--" said Hawkeye.

"I'm not that toasted," Roy said. "Don't think I didn't see you keeping count."

"You didn't see me at all," Hawkeye reminded him patiently.

"And yet, you _were_ keeping count, weren't you?" Roy asked. He got Alicia up on his shoulders at last. "Hold on, but careful of the patch, all right?" Alicia gripped his hair firmly. "And we're off. Fare thee well, gentlemen. Gentlelady." He turned his head enough to actually look at Hawkeye. She was sitting sideways in her chair, arm over the back, looking up at him. And smiling at him.

Roy and Alicia made it back to Gracie without tripping over anything or anyone, although there was a near miss with a waiter and a tray full of canapés.

Gracie was sitting with Joannie, and said to her, "See? I told you Alicia could get him back."

"Natural-born man-catcher, that one," said Joannie. "She's got those limpid green eyes of yours."

"Mm," said Gracie, her limpid green eyes sparkling with amusement. "How do you think he'll take it when she starts winking them at the other kids?"

"If _that's_ any indication," said Joannie, gesturing up at him--at Alicia riding on his shoulders, Roy realized, "terribly. Papa's little girl all over again."

"That's how he courted me, you know," Gracie confided. "No candy or sonnets or flowers, just that he wanted to help out with Alicia."

"Well, _I_ think that's romantic," said Joannie. "What do you think?" she asked. Roy opened his mouth to respond, but she continued, "Are you going to call Roy 'Papa' now, baby girl?"

Alicia went still on his shoulders. Roy looked up, even though he knew perfectly well he couldn't see anything from this angle. "You don't have to," he told her. "I know I'm not."

Alicia's hands held tighter to his hair. "Don't know," she said softly.

"No rush," he assured her.

"Troublemaker," Gracie said to Joannie. "Get out of here, you."

Joannie got up, saying, "_I'd_ call you Papa." She kissed Roy on the cheek and patted Alicia's knee.

Gracie said, "Hands off, you've got your own!"

Joannie said, "But how will I ever satisfy myself with just one?" and groped his rear as she walked off.

Roy jumped and glared after her.

"Come sit down," said Gracie, patting Joannie's vacated seat. He did, Alicia still on his shoulders, and Gracie handed him a piece of cake. She said unrepentantly, "I got hungry, so I cut it without you."

"Mm," said Roy through a mouthful of frosting.

"Who won the bet?" Gracie asked.

Roy wondered who had told her. Hawkeye, maybe. They had gotten as thick as thieves during his convalescense, and Hawkeye had actually bet--although she'd bet _wrong_, which was confusing. Maybe she'd been trying to cover for him, convince everyone that blabbermouth Havoc was wrong. Yes, that was comforting. "Actually, I don't think anyone bet on my heart being big enough for all of them," Roy answered.

"Oh, dear," Gracie said mildly. "They're not all coming on the honeymoon, are they?"

"No," Roy said. "Just the three of us." He patted Alicia's shin where her leg hung against his chest. Alicia hugged his head, and Gracie leaned in to hug him around the middle.

"Don't expect me to be this mushy all the time," Roy said gruffly. "I had at least half a bottle of champagne."

"No excuse," said Gracie. "That stuff's all bubbles."

Later on, after the reception was over and most of the guests had shoved off, Hawkeye helped Roy get their luggage into the trunk of the car, while Gracie buckled a sleeping Alicia into the back. When Gracie had gotten into the driver's seat and Hawkeye and Roy had slammed the trunk shut (alas, without marring Havoc's soap scrawl of "Just Married" on the rear window), Hawkeye said, "Sir--she's yours, isn't she?" She nodded through the glass at Alicia, the top of her head just visible.

"No," Roy said.

Hawkeye looked startled. "But--" She stopped and bit her lip.

"I know what you're asking," Roy said. "But he was her father, and he'll always be her father."

Hawkeye nodded. "I understand, sir," she said.

Just before Roy got into the car, Hawkeye hugged him around the shoulders, quick and hard. She stepped back and saluted directly after. "Have a good trip, sir," she said.

"Thank you," said Roy, and saluted her in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally posted on dreamwidth: <http://jmtorres.dreamwidth.org/811183.html>.


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